Shel Kimen, 42, traded a career in advertising in New York to pursue her dream of opening a hotel made from shipping containers in Detroit.

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It takes some imagination to envision how Shel Kimen wants to transform a barren piece of land surrounded by vacant, graffiti-marked buildings just blocks from the vibrancy of Detroit's Eastern Market.

Kimen, 42, a Chicago-raised Michigan State University graduate with an eclectic background in advertising, social media, art and the Internet, is a transplanted New Yorker who wants to reinvent herself career-wise by repurposing an acre of Detroit.

She's pursuing a plan to build a boutique hotel out of shipping containers on land abutting a soon-to-be expanded section of the Dequindre ...